July 6, 2007 Night out in Osaka

I thought my day had reached its climax when, around lunch time, a big ugly box that sits on top of one of the cupboards, suddenly started making very funny noises :o) First it went "krhcchkerkchkchchr", followed by a nervous "pling plong plang plong", and then the voice of Okada-san, our Human Resource person, announced that there would be a security check in the afternoon.
Umezawa-san had noticed my looks watching the box and she smiled: "Yes, they do make the sound by hand", which was immediately followed by another "pling plong plang plong" - I just had to burst out in laughter imagining Okada-san standing in front of a microphon, creating funny melodies on an ancient xylophon *g*

I really can't imagine why they just wouldn't tell me where the room with that thing is located *mischievous grin*

But near the end of work, Simon sent me an email asking what I'd be up to in the evening, so I decided to stop by in Osaka to meet him. Simon is an intern at Bayer Yakuhin (Health Care), and he was also at my welcome dinner during the second week.

An impressive amount of people crossing a minor road...

HEP Five, an entertainment complex / Shopping Mall

We had quite a fun evening, meeting up in Yodobashi Kamera to do some Tech shopping and laptop looking, spent a while walking around Osaka and then Simon took me to the apartment of a manager friend of his, who is currently on a business trip and left him his keys!

The apartment was amazing, really big for Japanese sizes, very fancy wood furniture, a giant flat screen, designer couches and lamps - and all of that in the center of Umeda, one of the busiest areas of Osaka. Bayer managers from overseas seem to be quite well taken care of over here :o)

Simon and I talked a lot and it made me think very hard on my way home... Simon is 22, has started his own business with 18, is studying event management and came to Japan for a 3-months internship. He has quite a bit of practical experience, plus speaks Japanese fluently because his dad is Japanese. That's probably why his internship is taking a very different course from mine. He is preparing three meetings for around 100 doctors and media people from all over Japan to coach them on new products that Bayer has developed (if I understood correctly). He's organizing those meetings, writing the budgets, traveling to look at the places, taking part in all kinds of sales meetings, designing new incentive systems... Don't get me wrong, I am definitely not complaining about my internship - I am very happy with the intense training I'm receiving and am not entirely sure whether I could handle a task like Simon's, even if it was in English.

But it made me think what I got out of my studies so far. I have been studying my current major for 2 years (well, or 8 months, depending on what you take as major), but I don't really feel like I am using any of the stuff I learned in university. What I am using are presentation skills, IT-skills (which I had before), and more or less common sense - and right now I can't think of anything out of the management majors that I am actively using...

People keep telling me that you rarely use stuff you learned in university, so I am hoping that I picked up a number of skills during studying that I am not entirely aware of...

It's just a little shocking that Simon, who in theory has studied as much as I have, is just so much further than me! Even more reason to add another internship around Xmas! And what I get out off all this thinking is that I want to use my time at SBU more actively, and I want to do a good job - I would like to have Mr. Amling and Eric think by the end of the internship - hey, that investment wasn't wasted on her...

June 24, 2007 Laaaaaaazzyyyy Weekend :o)

Hehe, as the title says, I have slept loads the past two days :o) My sleeping schedule is totally screwed up, but I guess by now I can't really blame it on jetlag anymore - it's screwed up like that most of the time anyways...

But I did manage to spend today's afternoon in Osaka! Last night I finally read a little bit in my travel guide, and it turned out that Osaka is closer to Amagasaki (where I work) than Ashiya (where I sleep) is to Amagasaki! And just reading the descriptions of all kinds of festivals all over the island made me want to travel soooooo much :o) I'm already considering hopping around Japan for some of the weekends, and actually, there will be quite a bunch of festivals and celebrations close by, so I wouldn't even need to calculate a lot of money and time. *happy*

Anyhow, I went to Osaka today! I'm such a big city kid! How I love to look at subway lines, train charts, street maps and all that good stuff *g* But the truth is that I spent the entire afternoon in one shop - Yodobashi Kamera! That's a giant department store specializing in technology *beam* I entered under the pretense of buying an electronic dictionary (which I didn't buy) and made my way to the camera section (one of which I did buy *g*). I actively avoided entering the laptop section as I first want to talk to SBU's IT-department whether I can borrow one of their machines before falling in love with a laptop I see on the road...

So I have a camera now! A Caplio R6, not tiny tiny, but small enough to carry around, lighter than she looks, super fast, with a great flash and easy access to ISO adjustment. I'm happy :o) Only downside: The instructions (on paper) come exclusively in Japanese, but I'll get to know that baby in no time, I'm sure :o)

Japanese are funny people. They build giant ferris wheels (Riesenraeder) on top of buildings, change the taste of McSundays to Mango and Strawberry instead of Chocolate and Caramel and hire people to put your wet umbrella inside a condom to not drip all over the store - I should start filing ideas to implement in Germany!

I'm getting a bit excited as my travel guide said something about a bar in Osaka close to the station where I get off, where PEOPLE DANCE SALSA!!! At least on Monday nights. So I can feel the itchy butt arriving :o) (Ok, this might be a German expression, I meant to say that I'm getting excited to maybe be dancing Salsa again soon!)

Which reminds me that my hero of the Spanish language Germ`an has introduced me to my new objective in Japan - dancing Salsa in one of the subways of Japan! (well, in his version it should be with a Bayer executive in the subway of Tokyo - I'll see what I can do about that *g*) The only reason that I didn't go looking for that bar today was the hectoliters of water pouring down without stopping - this must be the rain for all of the rest of the year!

Alrighty, let's see whether I can remember to take my shoes off when I get home! (One of the things that I definitely don't have internalized yet! Here, you're asked to take off your shoes at almost any occasion - entering a room, going to the bathroom, trying on clothes, stepping onto tatami mats... It sounds very logical and I actually like the idea, it's just that I keep finding myself stepping on things, or putting on my shoes and then realizing that I need to get my stuff from across the room... and my Vans are very much a bad choice to be putting on and taking them off all the time. But it's only been a week, so I'm not giving up on me yet :o))

Good night guys, hope you're all well!!

June 21, 2007 In the Office

My second day of work. Arima-san and Mutsuko-san write me little notes and letters to meet for the next day =) Arima-san also printed out a map for me and marked the important spots - dormitory, internet caf`e, supermarket, convenience store, train station.

We arrived at work around 9:30am. The good thing is that we have flex time, so we can arrive somewhere between 8 and 10am. The streets we take to get there are very narrow, so the cars adapted to that =) So far, I haven't really seen foreign cars, and the Japanese cars seem to be half as wide as European ones =). I guess, US cars would just block the entire street *g*

I also saw bikes that have a special clip to attach umbrellas! So you can ride the bike and that "hand clip" holds the umbrella for you to protect you from sun and rain. I mention both because the weather is quite volatile here - it's constantly warm and pretty humid, but so far I can live well with that. Last night when we went home, there was half a typhoon blowing and today the sky is very cloudy. That's the rain season, they say.

I worked a lot with Powerpoint today and did some internet research. Eric introduced me to more senior staff and I keep scribbeling down comments next to the list of names I received to not forget all of them immediately!! So far, I met like 10 or 15... I've always been bad with names, but with Japanese names, I'm even worse!

Eric and I went to lunch to a different place today and I ordered (well, he ordered) a bowl of noodles for me. In the future, I will try either to bring food for lunch or to eat only a little bit as I have the free dinner at home.
In Japan, you're supposed to slurp noodles and soup very noisily to tell the cook that you enjoy the food, so today I made a lot of noise eating :o) Hopefully, I don't forget how to eat silently when I go back to Europe *hihi*

Going back home was a pain - my feet hurt (I'm wearing high heels, I guess most of you know me in sneakers!) and I felt a bit lonely. I really regret not having brought my laptop or at least more music!! Should have listened to my brother, with music everything's better... I miss my friends, my family, I miss Spain! The other day, I bought oranges and they are about 4 times as expensive as they are in Spain, and taste quite dreadfully... I guess what annoys me most of all is the fact that I can hardly talk to anyone and express myself and that I don't understand anything that is going on around me... I love to be informed and to gather information, but here I'm just drifting around. That's why I talk to Eric so much. Menos mal que toda la gente se ocupa mucho de m`i. I'm glad that everyone is so eager to help me! But right now I have that typical "surrounded by people, feeling alone" feeling - Natsumi-san even took me to a tech store today after work so that I could buy an electronic dictionary - but they were all made for Japanese people (I know, very surprising), so I wouldn't have been able to understand anything... There must be versions for foreigners, though...

Anyways, I guess I'll end this strange day now. Good night!

June 17, 2007 A new experience ahead of me

I don't think I have ever eaten a sandwich that tastes quite as much like parsley and red onions. How odd, I haven't even left the continent yet!
We're approaching England, and 45 minutes into the flight, Cambridge appears on the screen =) Greetings, Michael! I am waving crazily at you, in good old John "The Chicken" Colden fashion :o)

OK, so far, everything has been business as usual: very little sleep, packing the bags "a 'ultima hora", driving my mom crazy, sending off final instructions to the family before surrendering the cell to be left alone in Germany.
Yupp, that's right, won't be bringing a cell phone! I'll be checking my mail every couple of days though in case you guys want to contact me. Depends a bit on how I find things, but I'll keep you posted!
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Got to London in a second, spending most of the flight sleeping, the rest of the time being equally split between reading Douglas Adams' "The long dark teatime of the soul" and eating :o)

If you're surprised that it's already the second time I'm mentioning food, you've probably never seen me eating - I worship food :o)
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By now, I'm definitely a minority at the airport - I've entered the gate to "the Asia section" ~ about 85% of the people waiting here are Japanese *content smile*. I can already practice a bit: "sumimasen" (excuse me), "gomenazai" (I'm sorry), "arigatou" (thanks) and "dou itashimashite" (you're welcome/keine Ursache) - very basic Japanese, but already working :o)
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(In the plane) Geez, I'm surrounded by... well, Japanese people, but what gets me more is the amount of tech gadgets they drop off into a bag that their travelguide is passing around - cell phones, I-Pod-style things and yo qu`e s`e! That makes me very aware once again, that this time, I'm traveling very lightly tech-wise:

I was going to bring a new laptop that didn't get to me in time. I wanted to bring a camera which got stolen on my way to Mallorca some weeks back (I'm apparently having a talent to have cameras robbed from me...). I could have bought a new cell phone, but as Japan uses a 3G standard for cell phones (which apparently is used very litlle in all the rest of the globe), that would have been pretty pointless.

I do bring a pair of pendrives (USB-sticks) with Portable Applications (www.portableapps.com) installed - first time using it, and I must say I'm quite intrigued! Maybe I won't need to get a subnotebook after all... =)
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Have I mentioned that I'm loving the headrests!?! I quite like British Airways - their homepage and pre-flight services have impressed the hell out of me, now I can add "online check-in", "freight allowance adjustment" and "unlimited weight of carry-on luggage (Handgepaeck) to the list (sole condition, you have to be able to lift up the carry-on luggage into the overhead compartment yourself).

I was going to comment on just how big and heavy this birdy is as it had "trouble" getting up into the air - but I'm already getting annoyed with myself for babbling constantly - so you must either be horrified or asleep by now! This past week I just couldn't stop talking! Sorry to everyone - I'll be good now and shut up :o)